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In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter presented by Pristine Auction:

• 3 players who could get cut & who would benefit
• Pristine Auction is giving away a signed Joe Burrow photo
• The WR poised for a breakout
• Best ball to redraft tips: Soft early season schedules
• Training camp risers: Dameon Pierce
• How to draft from the 11 spot
• Jonathan's favorite last round pick: Nico Collins
• It’s 8/25. Take it away, Peter Overzet…

With the 53-man roster deadline less than a week away on Tuesday, August 30, we are bound to see some surprise transactions in the coming days.

Here are 3 cut candidates who caught my eye, plus one TE who could potentially get moved before Tuesday...

✂️ Kenyan Drake. This is the most likely to happen as the Raiders have already indicated that they plan to release him. They are likely holding out hope that they can still negotiate a trade, but they've made their intentions clear.

Considering Josh McDaniels seems poised to deploy a running back by committee, rookie Zamir White and pass catcher Ameer Abdullah have become very interesting draft targets.

✂️ Darrel Williams. Multiple league sources told PFF's Doug Kyed that Williams is a cut candidate. He's only played four snaps all preseason and it appears Eno Benjamin has leapfrogged him for the backup duties. Williams is on a cheap contract and the team seems happy with what they are getting from Jonathan Ward on passing downs. Benjamin remains a priority target in drafts. 

✂️ Trey Sermon. NBC Sports Bay Area's Matt Maiocco thinks the second-year RB who the Niners took in the third-round last season is on the roster bubble. This is a bit surprising because there were some early camp reports that he was in line for a bounce back year. With Eli Mitchell still nursing a hamstring injury, a Sermon cut would make Jeff Wilson Jr. and Tyrion Davis Price incredibly interesting late round RB selections.

BONUS: Mike Gesicki. Gesicki isn't getting cut (he's playing on the fully guaranteed franchise tag), but a league source told PFF that the Dolphins have "brought up" his name to other teams. Reports out of camp indicated that Gesicki is in line (pun intended, I guess) for more of a blocking role this year. The Dolphins must feel pretty good about their WRs and Durham Smythe to even consider moving him.

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Have fun shopping and may the odds be in your favor for the Joe Cool photo..

🚀 "He appears poised for a breakout third NFL season." The buzz out of San Francisco continues for this WR.

🤷 Who will be the Seahawks starting QB? Pete Carroll answers in the only way he knows how.

🏆 The 2022 RBs with legendary upside. Great piece by Pat Kerrane.

⛔ Russell Wilson's bizarre diet. Might have to try this out.

🌎 The most notable NFL free agents. The fact that Will Fuller isn't on this list is concerning.

🚑 The Giants lose a WR. This hurts their depth.

🎙️ Matthew & Bill Simmons preview the fantasy season. Check it out.

We’ve been talking about Best Ball all summer long, but as September draws near, we need to get prepped for our season-long drafts. Each day this week, Pete will share some tips and tricks on how to swap out your best ball brain with the season-long mindset.

In best ball tournaments, we optimize around the end of the season because that is where all of the prize money is determined, but in season-long leagues where we have opportunities to look ahead after the draft via the waiver wire and trades, we can focus on fast starts.

The best way to do this is to look at early season schedules for positions we might stream throughout the season. 

If you know you are going to cut a kicker and defense eventually, you might as well target one who has a good Week 1 matchup or easy schedule for the first few weeks.

It’s pretty common to stream kickers and defenses, but this could also apply to QBs and TEs depending on whether you missed out on an elite one in the draft. Here are a handful of players and teams who have a nice early season schedule...

🎯 Early Season QB Targets: Both Matt Ryan and Jared Goff have smooth schedules right out of the gate which should get them off to a fast start. Sam Wallace explains in depth here.

🎯 Early Season WR/TE Targets. I really like the Eagles schedule right out of the gate and think AJ Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Dallas Goedert will get off on the right foot  vs. the Lions, Vikings, Commanders, and Jaguars. The Saints could find themselves in a couple early divisional shootouts vs. the Falcons and Bucs, both of which will be played in domes. Michael Thomas and Chris Olave, anyone?

🎯 Early Season RB Targets: The Broncos open up the season against the Seahawks and Texans. Both backs should get off to a hot start…Jonathan Taylor is going to feast Week 1 (Texans) and Week 2 (Jaguars), but you didn’t need me to tell you that.

🎯 Week 1 Defense Targets: The Bengals are at home Week 1 vs. either Mitch Trubisky or the rookie Kenny Pickett. The Commanders are at home vs. Jacksonville. Either of those teams would be good to target for a defensive streamer.

🎯 Week 1 Kicker Targets: The Cowboys start the season with two home games in the dome vs. the Bucs and Bengals that could feature a ton of points. Rookie kicker Jonathan Garibay could be a good streaming kicker target.

Bonus: for more info on early season strength of schedule for each team, Sam Hoppen put together some great charts for the first five weeks of the season.

Training camps and preseason action continue to push players up and down our draft boards. Today, Sam weighs in on a RB whose stock is on the rise...

Fourth-round RBs don’t usually push for starting roles in Year 1.

But when a shallow depth chart meets a talented player, the potential is there for something special.

RB Dameon Pierce is a Day 3 pick trending towards starting Week 1 for the Houston Texans. He was a four-year player at Florida who never topped 106 carries in a season. Pierce finished his college career with only 326 attempts, 1,804 yards, and 23 TDs.

Regardless, the drum beat continues for Pierce and it started back in early June. Draft position determines what rookies are eligible to be paid, but the Texans paid Pierce, “...$25,000 more than they had to according to his draft slot as the second pick of the fourth round”.

That wound up hampering negotiations for other fourth round picks. The Texans spoke with their wallet and it’s paying early dividends.

In the preseason opener, Pierce racked up 49 yards on just five carries. He went on to sit out the second preseason game because head coach Lovie Smith said they didn’t need to see him.

That should speak volumes.

According to the Fantasy Life ADP Tool, Pierce is going as the RB39. His ADP has drastically ticked up in recent weeks due to his excellent performance in Week 1 and his subsequent absence in Week 2.

The camp hype is there and it’s translating to the field. At his current price, I’m all in. Peter Overzet & Kendall Valenzuela summarized the case for Pierce in their latest spot for Sirius XM Fantasy Sports Radio.

Season long drafts are just around the corner. In this series, our contributors will get you prepared from all twelve of the first round draft slots. Today, Pete shares how to attack a draft from the eleventh pick...

I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry. 

You got dealt a crappy hand, but we are going to make the best of it.

We’ve previously called the last few picks in the first round a “Choose Your Own Adventure” and that remains the case.

When I get the 1.11, I’m asking myself, how can I compete with the teams at the top of the draft board who got one of Christian McCaffrey, Jonathan Taylor, Cooper Kupp, Justin Jefferson or Ja’Marr Chase?

If Stefon Diggs or Davante Adams are available, I’m going to scoop them up because they have the talent and situations to compete with those Top 3 WRs.

I’m also going to give a hard look at Travis Kelce if he’s there. If I’m not able to draft a better RB or WR than my opponents, then I’d love to crush them at the TE position.

But if I miss these options, I want to make sure I’m drafting a RB who has the ceiling to finish as the overall RB1 on the season. I have concerns with backs like Najee Harris, Derrick Henry, and Joe Mixon, who I think can be Top 10 backs, but don’t have the ability to finish as the RB1 because of either their lack of big play ability (Harris) or lack of pass catching role (Henry and Mixon).

I don’t like taking RBs in the first round, but when I do, they better have RB1 overall upside. The two backs I’m dialed into in this range would be Dalvin Cook and Saquon Barkley.

Barkley, especially, seems primed for a massive bounceback year now that he’s fully healthy and playing for a creative coach in Brian Dabboll. 

The one silver lining to drafting from 1.11 is that there’s a good chance you’ll be able to get two of the players we’ve mentioned above when it comes back around to you at 2.1. 

My two favorite selections on the wrap who haven’t been mentioned would be WR CeeDee Lamb and RB D’Andre Swift. Good luck.

Sure, your first round picks are important, but those decisions are generally pretty straight forward. Where we can really crush our opponents is at the end of the draft. In this new series, our contributors will highlight some of their favorite flyers to take with a last round pick. Take it away Jonathan...

I like my last round selection to be a player that I will learn a lot about in the first few weeks of the season. The goal is to know early on if I have hit on a deep sleeper or can cut them for someone on waivers. There are plenty of players who fit this criteria but one of my favorites is Texans’ second year WR Nico Collins. 

After being drafted by Houston in the third round last year, Collins went on to earn a decent amount of playing time and caught 33 passes for 446 yards with one score. Those numbers aren’t eye popping but it was solid production for a rookie in a bad offense. Most importantly, Collins got better as the season progressed. Now entering year 2, he has a good chance to cement himself as the second option in the offense behind Brandin Cooks. It remains to be seen just how valuable that role is, but the upside is enough that I want to find out.

Another year of development and building chemistry with QB Davis Mills gives Collins some sneaky potential for fantasy. The 6’4” WR can be a nice complement to Cooks and provide Mills with a big target in the red zone. I don’t expect the Texans offense to be great, but they should be competent and will be trailing regularly enough to force them into throwing the ball. 

If Collins can make the second year leap, I expect him to see enough volume to be a valuable bench WR who you can be confident plugging into your lineup when injuries and bye weeks hit.

Her: “Hey babe, can I see your phone?”

Me: “Yeah… Hold on one sec.”

— Collin Schmitt (@collinlschmitt) 
Aug 23, 2022